


Tacit Approval

by Evandar



Series: 100fandoms Challenge [1]
Category: The White Road - Sarah Lotz
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-18 00:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19966048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: It takes a lot for Thierry to watch the last footage from Si's GoPro, but nothing at all to share it with the world.





	Tacit Approval

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 100fandoms challenge on DW. 
> 
> I love this book. Didn't ever see myself writing fic for it, but here we are.

Si hadn’t been doing well. He hadn’t been doing well since Cwm Pot and that fucking Ed weirdo. Whatever happened down there had broken something in his mind. Thierry had seen it in the last few seconds of the footage he’d taken, pale and trembling and wide-eyed in the dark – he’d seen it, but hadn’t _wanted_ to see it, and…well. He was a cunt, he knew that. He knew he hadn’t helped by putting the footage online, by sending Si to Everest, by pushing and pushing and pushing at him until he’d finally realised that Si had been too far gone to push back. By that point, it had been too late.

His therapist hadn’t directly called him a cruel arsehole, but Thierry had caught it in the look she gave him while she told him that allowing guilt was good so long as it wasn’t overwhelming. Whatever. 

Si had been his best friend for a long time, even after Si had seen him for what he was. And for all that they’d cut each other from their lives as much as they could – too twisted round by their own depravity and moral ineptitude – he’d still been the beneficiary of Si’s will. He’d still been the one they sent that fucking GoPro to once they found Si, up there, curled up with the frozen corpses he’d been so enchanted by.

It had taken a lot to watch the footage. A lot of courage and a lot of whiskey. It had taken so fucking _much_ to plug it in to his laptop and watch his best friend die in the highest graveyard on earth.

_“My name is Simon Newman. He isn’t here. He isn’t here. He isn’t here. He isn’t here. Oh -”_

That last, frostbitten smile would haunt Thierry for the rest of his life. The relief on Si’s face when he’d seen something just before the light faded from his eyes; the way he’d relaxed in those last seconds before cold and exhaustion overtook him and stole what was left of his life away. He hadn’t _really_ been living for years, but it was only when Thierry saw that recording of Si’s final moments that he realised his friend had damn near been a walking corpse and he’d never even noticed.

The funny thing is that, even though it took so much to watch the footage – even though it nearly broke him to watch Si die – it’s easy as anything to send a copy of the recording on to one of their bloggers. Some nameless lacky working on a listicle on haunting footage. He sends it with instructions to _treat it sensitively_ and to _link to some of Si’s work on the site_ and to _don’t put it in the top slot_ just in case they get accused of bias in the comments section. 

It takes nothing to pass that footage on because, in the end, Si knew exactly who Thierry is. What he does. He knew and didn’t change his will and Thierry has to take it as tacit approval to share Si’s last moments with the world.

He has to.


End file.
